In recording sound information and associated on one and the same track of a recording medium, it is known to have the sound information compressed in terms of time and inserted into portions of the video format signal and to have the picture information inserted into the remaining portions of the video format signal. In this known method, it is required to have the picture and sound information inserted into the video format of a recording medium in accordance with a predetermined pattern. This makes it impossible to reproduce the recorded information in different modes.
A video format signal contains not only the picture and sound information but control information necessary for the reproduction of the picture and sound information. Such coninformation is predominant over the operation of the information recording and reproducing system and is required to be cleared of errors when the picture and sound information is to be reproduced. Where the picture and sound information is to be recorded on and reproduced from a recording medium of a certain nature such as a video disc, not only errors in the bits of data but burst or continued errors tend to take place due to the presence of, for example, a scratch or a hair on the surface of the recording medium. Meticulous and exacting correction of these errors in the control information is indispensable when reproducing a video format signal from such a recording medium.
It is, accordingly, an important object of the present invention to provide an improved method of recording and reproducing a video format signal in various modes such as continuous, stepped and slow motion picture modes and a still picture mode.
It is another important object of the present invention to provide an improved method of recording and reproducing a video format signal by assuredly correcting the errors which may be involved in the control information as well as the sound information in the video format signal during reproduction of the video format signal.